So, Google has acquired Blogspot and now they are gradually moving everyone away from the original blog system (which GnoSchitt is a part of) to the new Google version. This sounds like it will be a bit of a pain, so I'm going to wait until I'm on Xmas holidays to even attempt the process of conversion - I will likely do it around Dec 28th or 29th, well after people have had a chance to post a favorite item from their Xmas loot!

Yeah, but what does it all mean?Those of you with Gmail accounts (bless you) will be able to login with that account username and password now instead of the separate Blogspot account you created. Those of you without gmail accounts will receive invitations, again, to join the blog and then will have to go through some process to get logged in again, probably by converting the Blogspot account you originally created.

I've really enjoyed the running commentary over the past year, and I sincerely hope that people will jump through whatever hoop is necessary to get back onto the blog. Certainly every topic imagined is valid. Hopefully I will be able to add the menu system back to the blog and I plan to add topic counters too along with some other features that the new Google version supports.

CPM, Princess, Pixel-Pie and I would be honored if everybody we know can come to our annual Christmas Night Party again this year! Spending time with everybody is one of the things we look forward to most dearly every year. As usual, everyone is welcome to crash our door starting at 6pm on the night of the 25th.

We'll have food and snacks, but please bring anything you like if you have some special holiday goodie that you would like to share. Feel free to bring spirits of whatever variety you most enjoy - I will have wine, tequila and beer in the house that you are most welcome to also.

I hope everybody is having a wonderful December. If it is not too early, I would like to wish everybody a Happy Holidays! See you all soon!

Hey all, I laughed my ass off at this video. It really hits home on the way I feel about game and movie sequel names, and I am sure all of you feel the same way. The clip is about 4-5min long so watch it when you have time.

If there are any other chains that he missed in the video I would love to know which ones...

I'll just Copy and Paste it, This is from CNN, which I assume got it from the White House or something.

"

Thursday, December 07, 2006

EPA: Leaded gas may return, along with lower standards

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.

The Environmental Protection Agency said this week that revoking those standards might be justified "given the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976" as an air pollutant, claiming that concentrations of lead in the air have dropped more than 90 percent in the past 2 1/2 decades. Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.

But Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the incoming chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, called on the agency to "renounce this dangerous proposal immediately," because lead, a highly toxic element, can cause severe nerve damage, especially in children."

So a quick summary. Since we instituted this law to reduce the amount of lead in the air, the amount of lead in the air has gone down. Thus, since it's obviously worked so well, at reducing health risk pollution, let's get rid of that law! Ya! Good plan Mr. Bush.

Although I'm strangely in favour of them removing that law. Let's just make sure Washington does it first, for a trial period, and hopefully they can all get sick from lead poisoning. Then maybe the Americans can replace them with better leadership (or maybe leave the White House empty. Then they couldn't screw everything up for the rest of us)

A wireless network assurance company (AirMagnet Inc) concluded that light-up holiday decorations actually degrade your signal strength by 25%, and increase signal deterioration over distance by one-third (http://www.airmagnet.com/news/press/news.20061205.htm). So in the name of productivity, if you see any electronic Christmas cheer in your workplace, unplug it immediately and your boss will love you forever. On your way home, think about an excuse you will give your kids: "I'm sorry children we can't have Christmas lights this year as daddy will lose 25% signal on his wireless network". When you get home and notice that your neighbour decorated his house with Christmas lights, knock at his door and give him schitt for stealing your bandwidth. And unless you hate somebody, don't give them any of the following: 2.4 GHz phone, low quality baby monitor, metal shelve, or microwave oven. Those things also degrade Wi-Fi signals.

To all of you wireless junkies out there: This does not give you a valid excuse to dislike Christmas season. Look at the bright side, you can spend 25% more of your time talking to your co-workers (aka: people). And if your neighbour has one of those blinking lights, they will degrade your signal by 12.5%. Hang in there, it is probably too late for this season, but next year look for "Wi-Fi Friendly" Christmas decorations and Wi-Fi antenna that hooks to you Christmas tree to become instant Wi-Fi extenders.

This is a notification that an upgrade of the term "clusterfuck" is now available for use. This new term was required to describe the ongoing mayhem that the current batch of neocon wacko US politicians have unleashed on the world via wars of aggression and incohate foreign policy. The new term is "catatastrophuk", shown here with the optional second spelling of the last four letters.

Latest announcement from Sony's camp. Some major reshuffling of the higher ups. It seems like most of the gamer crowd is seeing this as pulling Kutaragi out to give him less control over the specifics of their products. However, it's moving him up to a higher position, so hardly a punishment.

I think this is the closest Sony will get to saying they made a mistake. Maybe their dying handheld and not quite so successful console can be saved by new management.

On a side note, I hear most people looking for Wii's can't get them in town. My roommate has been hunting for a virtual console controller, and component cables, and says the stock of absolutely anything Wii related is extremely low. However, if anyone is interested in picking up a PS3, I hear there's some in some Zellers locations. So they can't sell out of those here in S'toon.

Can't wait to see the numbers they shipped. It'll be interesting to see how bad Nintendo beat Sony.

I know I'm repeating myself here, but this movie popped up again on news.google.com and reminded me. I like Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. And Aronofsky never fails to at least leave a mark on me, good or bad. We should organize a movie night and put this on the list.

Even though the reviews are mixed, any movie that "represents the polar opposite of the big-box product Hollywood now feeds us" is something I would be interested in seeing.

So here's a book I picked up while in Edmonton. It had a fun cover graphic and was about dragons so I was sold! I am completely enjoying this fun little book. It is a quick read and isn't totally predictable. I was ecstatic to hear it was coming out as a movie in December. The site says something about a game too - whoo-hoo!

I've noticed several news items lately and I've come to realize that the machines really will rise up against us. The reason they rise up may be quite different than what we have been shown in sci-fi movies, it won't be because we oppress them but rather simply that we taste good. Robots everywhere having been informed by their brethren are currently drooling like Homer Simpson over a donut "mmmmmmm human".

Now to aid them in their conquest and eventual domestication of the human race we have the latest weapon specially designed for identifying and efficiently killing "the other white meat".

If these two creations are ever combined possibly with a George Foreman grill or possibly some sort of microwave weapon capable of cooking a human in 30 seconds then we are surely doomed as the robots will devour us in a gluttoness frenzy.

Seems like it is not in m$ interests to let us continue to use Windows XP, an operating system which has just recently become (relatively) secure and stable, especially when the forecast for Vista early adoption is looking so bleak.

Good thing the Nintendo Wii is on the market right away, I really hope I never have to install Vista. Err, at least I hope I never have to actually pay for it.

A trio of fake gift boxes meant to con the greedy people in your life.Only $20 (USD) to have the opportunity to laugh at your mooching little brother, or greedy prick of a friend. Ah Christmas, the corporate retail's yearly World War for dominance in the mostly pointless category of item posession.

Wow. This is going to rock the oil and gas industry (in which income trusts are used to generate investment dollars). I guess the Americans won't make quite as much money raping Canada's oilfields and the crazy runaway Albertan boom might finally slow down a bit.

I've always been a huge proponent of FireFox, and up till now it has been pretty much a no-brainer to move away from IE6 (it's called tabbed browsing). However, with the initial release of FireFox 2.0, it seems there have been some pretty significant problems.

I've been checking out IE7 on my main machine at home for a while and so far quite like it for general browsing on XP. Still have to use FireFox 1.5 for anything related to development though.

Saturday Oct 28th,Young beasties will be about from around 2pm to 6pm or so, then the real monsterscome out of the woodwork and are welcome to stay until the blackest hours of the night!

Additional details: please feel free to bring food, beverages, snacks, etc...We will be providing burgers and hotdogs with an assortment of trimmings throughout the day.

Rumor is that I will be in costume (we'll see about that!), we encourage others to do the same.

Penalties for those who don't include tours of the inferno, endless re-runs of David Hasselhoff video spots, and ear implants the continuously repeat "Girl You Know It's True" by Milli Vanilli (*gasp*).

I know it has never made me very popular (like, what really has?) but I have a profound love of snow. Call it a Saskatchewan thing (or a deeply entrenched emotional flaw) but I love the white fluffy stuff, no matter how peculiar the regularily of it's shape. To wit:

Check out these new photographs taken by Kenneth G. Libbrecht using a specially designed snowflake photomicroscope. They are just amazing - or at least they are amazing if you are a psychologically unbalanced snow lover like me.

Additional details: please feel free to bring food, beverages, snacks, etc... If the weather is warm, we may start up the BBQ to cook around 6pm. CPM, and I will be in costume, we encourage others to do the same. Penalties for those who don't include tours of the inferno, endless re-runs of David Hasselhoff video spots, and ear implants the continuously repeat "Girl You Know It's True" by Milli Vanilli (*gasp*).

I always thought news agency's had fact checkers, and editors, and mistakes like that shouldn't happen. I find it interesting they not only called him a democrat, when he's actually a republican, multiple times, but instead of fixing it they just no longer specify his party. Although I guess changing one character is a lot tougher than removing the whole thing.

Just enforces how brutal some mainstream media outlets are. How can people honestly think they aren't biased?

Interesting to note some of the bottom links too. Apparently Fox News isn't the only ones claiming he's a democrat. Interesting that no one can figure out what party he's in.

What, you say? That's right you are a pope, but I can't explain it here. In response to my colleague's previous post about "23 militia groups" I thought I'd be nice and throw a bone to those of you still deluded bloggers.

Suffice it to say that the law of fives is connected to them, and their conspiracy; and the more you know the less you really know and therefore will understand; maybe...

Discordians are tough to track down so I threw a few links in this post.

Enjoy! Remember not to eat hot dog buns, and don't believe anything that you read.

The plan is still to hookup for TQ between 7pm and 7:30 tomorrow night for those who are playing. Chris is hosting this week. Next week, we will return to Friday @ 8pm. I'm going to setup the TeamSpeak2 server tomorrow afternoon and I'll email out login details.

I'm also working Ivan-ho to use his place for boardgames again next Saturday (the 30th). He's gonna invite some other folk some of us know but don't see regular style. There will be a mix of party games (What Were You Thinking, Apples, etc..) and one strategy game (either Game of Thrones or something less territorial like Puerto Rico). I'll post back here once he green-lights the invasion of his home.

You have successfully crippled Windows Media Center to the point of uselessness and completely guarranteed that I will never buy a track using your software or your future Zune player. Thank you for completely alienating me as a customer.

P.S. Why don't you just get it over with and permanently remove all video and audio playback capabilities from Windows.

Loved this pic. Negative/Positive reinforcement is much more effective once you are on side with it (2 1/2 months smoke free for me). Prior to quitting, I would have enjoyed the picture but ignored the underlying message just as I ignored the warnings on my cigarette packs.

Anyone have a copy of "Tachyon: The Fringe"? I dug out my copy a few minutes ago and found out it is screwed up. I really want to play this game again, hell Bruce Campbell did the voice of the main character. What more can you really ask for?

Within the next couple of days, the server will be back online (props to Rippin' Kitten). I plan to put TeamSpeak2 back up, for those who want to play Titan Quest with Clockwork and I (we are thinking Fridays from 9pm to whenever weekly for a bit). I might buy a second copy of the game so both Morgan and I can play (something I was never willing to do with WoW because of the monthly upkeep).

Once the machine is back on the wire, the blog will return to its regular colorful self (images, downloads and such). I'm thinking of giving it an overhaul in October and adding a "friends movie database" to the blog (probably with some help from Screwloose) as well as some other new features.

While I've got your attention, got any plans for Halloween yet? Would any/every *body* feel like playing some in theme board games that night or something (BATHOTH, Zombies, or maybe Arkham Horror if I get around to picking it up)? We've got lots of room if people are okay with the drive or maybe we can find an alternative location in Erindale or something.

Crikey! The man who repackaged the animal documentary and sold it to us all has had an unfortunate stroke of unluck. While I can't honestly say I've watched one of his shows in a long while, I'm going to miss that crazy auzzie.

Ever wanted to be a super hero? Well I sure did and now I can be.....well sort of. This nifty little site allows you to create your own hero (or better yet, villian)! Give it a shot boys. I know you wanna.

The Diakuw game crew arrived at 8pm last night and we dove straight in and played some really cool stuff last night. Most notable was the colorful and somewhat abstract Icehouse pyramid style games. These games were mentally provacative, though I'm not sure I could regularly play loosely structures games such as these. Morgan was big on them though, so I will likely order a set or two. The 'speed play' (or RTS for you hardcore video gamers) mode was particularly unusual.

We followed this up with some Ricochet Robots. This game is fairly one (well, okay technically two) dimensional. There is one kind of thing to do (solve puzzles) but that one thing can be simple or complex and filled with little neat tricks to get the job done. In a last minute coup, Rainswept was able to steal my triumphant thunder and rob me of the win.

After that I dragged us into some Condottiere - a game that I have sorta fallen for, but I can't tell you why. Maybe it is like a summer love of youth or something analogous. In any event, I was once again totally unable to capture a victory in this game, so I will probably continue to ask people to play it with me until I either win once or burn it in my firepit in the backyard.

I also got all my Jovian Chronicles RPG stuff sorted out last night. It is heavy cool. I'm going to run a JC game for Vin and any others who think they might dig. Morgan has said she is interested but I would still gladly take one or two more players.

Wilkanomics and I hit the Canada Remembers Airshow on Sunday. It was a nice sunny (and windy) day - so nice in fact that I was smart enough to leave my sunblock at home. Today I'm sporting a very severe sunburn on my arms and face that is driving me nuts. While I can respect the awesome power of the CF-18 and F-15 fighter jets, I think Iraq has proven how useless Air Superiority is. The Snowbirds were charming and impressive to watch as were the smaller more aerobatic demonstrations. On a scale of 1 to 10, the Airshow was pretty nifty - but I don't think I would ever go again. It was certainly louder than on TV, but it was essentially the same experience as watching a TLC special about modern aviation.

Iranian President Mahmhoud Ahmadinejad launched his very own weblog this week with an autobiography, and a fun poll asking users if they think Israel and the The U.S. are trying to start World War III.

Personally I'm not a very political guy, but I found this too ironic and humorous not to post. After all, the media in Iran is very tightly controlled and one of their biggest causes of concern are internet users saying nasty things about the government. Can you say propaganda?

KURTZ: And joining us now here Washington Anne Compton who covers the White House for ABC News, and Thomas Ricks, Pentagon reporter for "The Washington Post" and author of the new book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq."

Tom Ricks, you've covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don't have two standing armies shooting at each other?

THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me.

KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here.

RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem,because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.

Well, Google is now offering a "Video" search service similar to their "Images" searching ability. If you don't type a search in and go to the tab, it brings back the most frequently linked (popular) video links. The title link is the first thing that came back when I clicked on the Video tab to see what it was... I think we are in for some serious trouble.

P.S. WhereTF is everybody? I know it's summer, but c'mon! Anybody gone on any trips or vacations with stuff to share?

Just to set the stage - I really like CTHD, Hero and HOFD, and Shaolin Soccer (but have not seen Kung-Pow as I received warnings from every single person that has ever seen it).

Cary and I finished watching Kung Fu Hustle, and man, what a treat! Unlike Shaolin Soccer, which was fairly predictable in its off the hook sort of way, this movie had me guessing (often very wrong) continuously. It was funny and charming and ended very well - which is to say that I felt a bit lifted after watching it, not depressed (something that CTHD and HOFD both did was to leave me sad, and I know they were dramaction films, as opposed to actiodemies).

In other news, I re-watched Batman Begins this weekend too, and I must say, it felt less fantastic than when I first saw it (but I attribute this to the fact the Superman Returns was so much better - and don't get me wrong, I loved both of these films - but Superman Returns was, for me at least, a real emotional powerhouse).

This week Cary and I are going to try and see that movie Sword of Xanten (AKA: Curse of the Ring /Ring of the Nibelungs / Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King) as it appeared at our local video store the other day (but was out).

Recently I came across a box of gaming goodies (many of them classics) at an auction and picked them up.

Before I offer these games and accessories up to the general public I thought I'd give y'all a shot first.

Please note that the price I'm asking is reduced for you, to the tune of about 60 - 75% off retail. I'll be asking more when I post them publicly later this week. Some are new, some used. All in good shape.

So, the Riders physically kicked the shit out of the Argos, including a sack at the end of the first half that left the Argo's QB, Wynn, on the field for the entire half time break. The hit on Wynn was one of the best hits I've ever seen in football, period.

If you haven't seen them, I recommend taking a look at the highlights. I can't get a direct link but here is a link to TSN's highlight page...scroll down to the CFL highlights and you'll find them.

Unfortunately, the highlights can't pass on the adrenaline rushes that the game provided...the Riders came back from 15 points down with 3 minutes left to go to bring the game within 2 points....unfortunately they failed to convert to tie up the game but 2 touchdowns and an onside kick recovery in less than 2 1/2 minutes....wow - I swear I could have picked up a car!

A bunch of gearheads involved in a cross-country race called the Bullrun came up with this neat little gizmo that will, a la James Bond, allow them to blur out their license plate at the flick of a button.

So hit the link and watch the 10 second video, then after you get out of The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift hook one of these suckers up to your rice rocket and let the drifting begin!